I’ve got about 8 months until I turn the dreaded 50. I am clinging onto 49 desperately, trying to savor the sweet taste of each day left in my 40s. I find myself spending a great deal of time, too much time really, thinking over choices I’ve made in my life. I go through days where I feel this gnawing, yet barely audible, hum of doubt vibrating within me, and then I push it aside. Waking the next morning, if I am quiet, I can hear it again. Distracting myself, I can avoid it for a time, yet there is a part of me that is fully aware of its existence.

There are so many things in my life for which I am extremely grateful. I enjoy so many blessings, including my amazing grown children, wonderful friends who make me laugh every day, and a loving and supportive family. I can keep myself busy with work, and coffee dates with friends, a good hike on a gorgeous fall day in AZ… but that hum does not go away. There are questions I ask myself that seem to be screaming inside of my skull. I cannot avoid the doubts I have, the things I may have missed, and the time I may have lost. Then, I heard a song by The Eagles that I had never heard before… and I was brought to tears.

“So you live day to day and you dream about tomorrow, and the hours go by like minutes and the shadows come to stay. So you take a little something, to make them go away. I could have done so many things, if I could only stop my mind… from wondering what I left behind, and from worrying about this wasted time.“

Living with regret that I am unable to regain time that has passed is just NOT the way I want to live my life. I make a tiny bit of progress each day with that, but it isn’t always easy if I am being completely honest. So I do what I can to appreciate what I have and spend my time in the present.

As the song goes on to say, “And maybe someday we will find, that it wasn’t really wasted time.”

~ Paige Loveland